South Africa has secured an award for facilitating the R1.6-billion investment that would see the substantial expansion of major multinational Procter and Gamble’s (P&G’s) local manufacturing operations.

The P&G investment, announced in March last year by Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies and P&G vice chairperson Dimitri Panayotopoulos, was in addition to the company’s existing investment of R500-million in a manufacturing plant for Pampers nappies in Johannesburg.

Davies said in a statement on Wednesday that the country was recognised – for the second time – at the Annual Investors Meeting, held in Dubai, for facilitating the second-best investment project.

The award bolstered the image of South Africa, which had already achieved a foreign direct investment target of R50-billion for the 2013/14 financial year, as an attractive investment destination for multinationals.

“This investment also confirms that Trade and Investment South Africa (Tisa), as an investment agency within the Department of Trade and Industry, is able to attract and facilitate large investment projects of major multinationals and retain and expand them,” he added.

Tisa had a three-year investment attraction pipeline, reflecting the growing number of multinationals establishing manufacturing hubs and developing regional supply chains in South Africa to supply the rest of Africa and global value chains, Davies pointed out.

P&G had also previously indicated that it planned to establish South Africa as its manufacturing hub for the Southern and East African markets.

The company had outlined plans to expand the production capacity of its existing Pampers plant – which, since its establishment in 2009, had attracted a further R6.6-million in investment from suppliers and created hundreds of jobs – and construct a greenfield multicategory production unit to manufacture a range of products, including detergents and feminine hygiene products, for local and export markets.

Construction of the new plant was expected to start this year, with production expected to kick off in 2016 or early 2017.